


Rembrandt

by I_Skavinsky_Skavar



Category: Captain America (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-11
Updated: 2012-04-25
Packaged: 2017-11-03 11:13:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/380770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Skavinsky_Skavar/pseuds/I_Skavinsky_Skavar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>WHAT IF... Project Rebirth kind of failed?</p><p>Instead of transforming Steve into a super-soldier, the serum just cured his ailments and gave him average health. Finding nothing to do with him, the SSR transfers Pvt. Steve 'Rembrandt' Rogers to 3rd Battalion of the 107th Infantry Regiment and sent oversees to fight in Italy as a regular rifleman.</p><p>But powers or no powers, Steve Rogers has a destiny to fulfil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

When Stark's instruments indicated Seventy-percent, things stopped going smoothly. Steve had began to scream those agonized, blood curdling scream, and so Erskine rushed to the Vita-ray saturation chamber, yelling out the young man's name, pounding on the outer surface as the light from within shone brighter and brighter.

Above, Agent Carter left the government men and politicians, rushing out of the observation booth to implore someone to shut the whole thing down. Erskine was far from about to argue with her, as he turned and commanded Stark to cut off the reactors, when suddenly, the screaming stopped, and above the hum and sparking of power and machinery, Steve yelled out,

"No! **Don't!** I can do this!"

To the men in the booth, or on the platform, there was little doubt Steve Rogers would die in that chamber, but not one of them dared deny him his destiny, whether that destiny was for him to emerge from the chamber as the perfect human male, or as a grotesque, misshapen, deformed carcass.

With an authorizing nod from Erskine, Stark went on to crank up the lever on the chamber's control console to raise the emission levels to full capacity. Speaking out the percentage as they rose by tens, Stark noticed that Steve had stopped screaming. Was he holding back the pain to see the procedure through, Stark wondered, or had his lungs been torn within him?

Tense seconds followed as the entire room grew brighter and circuit boards sparked, and then the chamber shutdown as programmed, a short while after reaching Hundred-percent emission levels. For a moment, no one knew what to do, and were terrified to find out. Erskine eventually called out to Stark, who pulled the lever back to unlock the chamber.

Steve Rogers stood inside the chamber, covered in sweat, with his chest raising and falling in labored breath. He was alive, and at least immediately, he looked to be unchanged.

No one quite knew how to react. Everyone was glad the young fool had somehow survived the ordeal, and Erskine was beyond relieved that Steven had not succumbed to the same fate that had befallen General Schmidt, but they were also succumbing to the frustration of the project's apparent failure.

Erskine and Stark helped Steve out and held him up until he could gather the strength to stand on his own. The entire audience gathered around to gawk.

"How do you feel?" Peggy asked as an orderly helped Steve into a white tee.

"…Taller." Steve said, dazed and out of breath.

On brief consideration, she could see that he was indeed taller. While he previously stood with his eyes toward her nose, they were now towards her own, as he slouched. Aside from growing two or three inches in height, there were other slight differences; his arms looked heavier, his shoulders were slightly wider, and his ribs were not nearly as protruding. Others were noticing it too, he was healthier-looking, and when dressed, he'd probably look normal, but to Colonel Philips and the other guests, including the project's political overseer, Senator Brandt, it wasn't nearly enough.

"I don't understand." Brandt grumbled, "I thought he'd come out looking like Tarzan."

"Looks aren't everything." Stark remarked, "He could still perform within our target goals without having affected a significant outward change."

"That is a possibility," Erskine said, "We need to run more tests."

There was a bit of a conversation after that, one that Steve wasn't able to listen to. The procedure had taken a lot out of him, and much of what had followed, as dramatic as it was, would fall through the cracks in his memory. He half-remembered the explosion of the observation booth and various exchanges of gunfire. The one memory from those chaotic moment that was quite vivid, the one he'd carry to his grave, was Erskine's trembling finger, wordlessly poking into his chest.

He must had left the doctor after his last breath left him, he must had ran up the stairs like Agent Carter had done before him, even though he didn't remember doing those things, because he did remember bolting out into the street and lunging at Agent Carter who'd been taking aim at the taxi barreling toward her, knocking her out of the way.

They hit the asphalt with him taking the brunt of the impact. He groaned, and she tore herself out of his protective embrace and furiously barked,

"I had him!"

There was a loud crash down the street, sounds of tires screeching, metal bending and glass breaking. Steve struggled to his feet and looked in the direction of the commotion to see the taxi had come to a halt, its front end embedded into the side of a parked sky blue Roadster.

"It looks like you got him."

 

 

A tenth of a second earlier and Agent Carter would have missed her shot, a tenth of a second later and she'd have been killed, but he'd knocked her away at precisely the right moment. State Department Agent Fred Clemson, or whatever his real name was, did not escape, and the last surviving sample of Erskine's serum was retrieved.

But Dr. Erskine was dead. He was a man well ahead of his peers, and he was gone. Project Rebirth's fate, despite the survival of most of its scientific staff and accumulated data and research, was in serious question.

So for the next couple of weeks, Steve endured every medical examination the SSR doctors could throw at him. Blood, urine and some other samples were taken to be examined. Back at Camp Lehigh, his body was put to the test; he was made to make the Camp's four mile run under Sgt. Duffy's observation, to swim in a near-freezing water, and to stay awake in a brightly lit room to see how he could cope.

In the end, the scientist learned how much of a super-soldier the procedure had made Pvt. Rogers into; not at all. Being made to stay awake made him extremely tired and begging to be allowed to sleep, those deathly cold swims soon gave him a cold, running the four miles got him sweaty and cramped.

However, he got over his cold faster than he ever did before. He could run faster, farther and for longer before he got tired. His asthma never acted up, either. As it turned out, he was rid of it. What they all eventually learned was that the serum had simply made Rogers _better_ , increasing his muscle mass and curing him of his high blood pressure, asthma, angina and all the rest of his ailments, raising him to terrifically _average_ physical health.

Then came the discussion of whether or not this qualified Erskine's work as a failure or not. Around the country, there were plenty of able bodied soldiers signing up for the armed services, and for those that weren't, there was the draft. Measured against the costs of operation, it might've not been worth it to use the procedure on willing 4-F'ers, and even then it was unknown, as it always has been, how many of the population were physiologically able to benefit from the procedure. There were some voices theorizing the serum's effect is tied to the existing physical properties of the recipient, and that an already fit man could be turned by the procedure into a true super-soldier as desired.

The discussion of what would happen to him, however, never arose. Colonel Philips, Agent Carter, and even Stark, had gone off to London to begin taking the fight to Hydra. He's requested to go with them, and was summarily rebuked.

And so he waited.

As the days passed, he was given less and less examinations, until it was all down to Dr. Hillman in the infirmary checking in on him and how he was doing on drills.

A few months later, while doing kitchen duty, Sgt. Duffy came up to him, looking as mean and surly as usual. The thing with the flagpole wasn't something he'd forgotten yet.

"Never thought I'd see the day, Rogers." Duffy spewed with distaste, "Pack your bags, Private. You're being transferred to the 107th and shipped to Italy. Uncle Sam is _that_ desperate."

Steve took the papers he was handed. It wasn't until Duffy was out of sight that it had sunk in.

There was little drama to it. There wasn’t a great trial to endure or a plea to make. He simply waited, and now, finally, he got his wish. He was being shipped overseas and deployed in combat, as one of his father’s regiment, no less.

And so, Steve Rogers of Brooklyn went to war.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the Journal of Private First Class Steven G. Rogers

**_September 24 th, 1943 - Italy_ **

_It was all of ten hours at the division repo depot before I was assigned to_

_H Company, 3 rd Battalion of the 107th. That was a week ago. _

_H Company is Bucky’s company, so I was certainly ecstatic. Except when_

_I got there, I didn’t know how to feel. Bucky looks different, his back is_

_hunched over and his eyes are sunken; he looks tired. I almost didn’t_

_recognize him at first, but then I don’t think he easily recognized me,_

_either._

_The other men look just like him, to one degree or another. They’ve been_

_fighting tooth and nail to hold the lines against the Germans. There are_

_plenty of them in the neighborhood now that they’ve been kicked out of_

_North Africa._

_I’m here to do something unsavory that needs to be done. My father_

_died in the lat war, choked to death in Argonne Forest. My mother_

_brought me up to believe that war was stupid and terrible and that_

_anyone that expects glory or romance out of it is a fool. But we were_

_both proud of my father, and knew what he did was step up to do what_

_needed to be done. I didn’t come here expecting green pastures and_

_pretty dames, but it’s one thing to know war is like and another to see it._

_Walking in with the other replacements, my uniform clean and my chin_

_hairless, I couldn’t help but feel ashamed and guilty. Some of the men_

_here looked at us with contempt, others looked through us with no_

_emotion at all. Bucky didn’t even try to deny it, but promised it was_

_temporary. He says I’ll be haggard and grizzles any day now._

_He showed me around and introduced me to some of the men. We’re both_

_in 3 rd platoon, but not the same squad. I’m a rifleman in 1st squad while _

_Bucky leads 2 nd squad. My platoon leader is a decent enough man called _

_Sergeant Lewis._

_Bucky’s assistant-squad-leader is a bear of a man from Boston called_

_Dum-Dum Dugan, who wears a hat and a mustache that can't possibly_

_be regulation. He's called Dum-Dum, they say, not because_

_he isn't smart, but because he leaves those who cross him bleeding and_

_deformed, just like a Dum-Dum bullet. Unlike most, he seems to be in high_

_spirits, and I don't know what to think of that._

_The platoon sergeant, Bull McGivenny, is even bigger than Dugan, but_

_nowhere near as pleasant. He's a bully, reviled by everyone in the platoon,_

_except for the platoon leader, Lt. Spencer Parker, who isn't any better._

_The Lieutenant treats the men with utter contempt and is a little too fond_

_of the fact that he is an officer. On my third day, he gave me hell about my_

_sketching during rest stops, and has bestowed me with the nickname_

_ Rembrandt _ _, which others are pleased enough to use._

_It guess it beats being called Dum-Dum._

_After the week I’ve had, I can say I've got the routine down, though I still_

_feel like an outsider. At night we sometimes go on patrol, looking for the_

_enemy, finding nothing. No news is good news, but probably not in a_

_place like this. I just hope what I do here makes what Abraham did back_

_in Brooklyn worthwhile._


End file.
